Confessions of a Call Center Gal - By Lisa Lim Page 0,117
to prove a point, I drive like Little Miss Daisy.
Mika balks, “Maddy! We need to do an engine swap so we can smoke the shit out of ricers like him.”
“Shut up, Mika. You’re not coming near my car ever again.”
He laughs and tousles my hair.
Sigh. My hair is permanently flattened, and I have a fart can muffler affixed to my car.
Twenty minutes later, I swing my car into the Lightning Speed parking lot and stall the engine. Mika tells me he’ll wait for me outside. Taking a deep breath, I start for the building and feel a sudden thrill compounded by happiness, relief and trepidation.
Sailing into the office, I waltz by Truong’s cubicle for the very last time. He throttles me from behind and jams me in a headlock. “Hey, we’re still celebrating your farewell at Phở Hoa tonight aren’t we?”
“Phở-king right we are!” I laugh, breaking free from his puny grasp.
Glancing briefly to the left, I catch Ingeborg looking distressed.
“Arch and I vill be there. Maddy, ve vill miss ya so much. It vill neveh be de same here vithout you,” she chokes with emotion and bursts into tears.
“Oh, Ingeborg,” I soothe. “I’ll miss you guys more than you’ll ever know, but we’ll still be in touch.”
She sniffles. “Yah, ve vill. Facebook me and Twitter me, okay?”
Karsynn barges into our intimate gathering. “We’re going to party it up at that Vietnamese noodle house tonight!”
“Yes we are.” I link my arm with hers. “And you can come, just as long as you don’t bring your porn star friends with you.”
Kars pulls a face. “Humph! Just so you know, Pamela is not my best friend. We’re already fighting over the remote. If I have to watch one more episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, I will shoot myself.”
Truong snorts with laughter. “Stop pretending! We know how much you just love your new airhead friends. Speaking of which, let’s line them up in a row and create a wind tunnel.”
“Okay, Kars,” I smirk. “I’ve changed my mind. You can bring Pamela Pornero tonight.”
“I don’t want to,” she harrumphs. “Pamela wouldn’t get any of the subtleties of a Vietnamese noodle house. She actually thinks the Vietnam War is still going on, and she thinks Vietnam is in Africa!”
Abruptly, Hilary pokes her head out of her watch tower and gives us the look. “What’s with all this ruckus? You people have calls to take! GET BACK TO WORK NOW OR ELSE YOU WILL ALL BE WRITTEN UP!”
The fiery Führer does not make idle threats, and so the crowd quickly disperses.
“Madison!” Hillary growls and beckons me with a whip of her head. “Get over here.”
Cautiously, I make my way to her desk. “Yeah?”
“I hear you’re leaving us,” she states with some hesitation and I give a slight nod. “Well, good luck,” she mutters grudgingly.
I force a smile. “Um…thanks,” I say stiffly.
“And if they’re ever hiring managers at Ajon, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know,” she remarks in a perfunctory fashion.
I jerk my head up in surprise. “I will.”
Rising ceremoniously to her feet, she looks me squarely in the eye. “Sometimes, it’s not easy being a manager here.”
At once, I feel a flicker of hope. Hope for Hillary the Giant Not Ready Nazi. This whole time, I’d vilified, demonized and ogre-rized her so much that I’d lost sight of the fact that she too might be suffering alongside us, that she too might be under pressure from her bosses at the top.
She’ll always be as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue, but this is a good start.
Before her hard-won pork chop exterior cracks any further, Hillary promptly dismisses me. “You’d best get going now. I know Douglas is in his office waiting for you to sign your dismissal papers.” She holds out her hand and I shake it firmly.
“Don’t come back to this place, Maddy.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Half an hour later, my dismissal papers signed, I hoist the cardboard box into my arms, ready to walk out of this place for good. For some inexplicable reason, I find myself stalling.
Spinning around, I gaze out at the infinite sea of cubicles. The ocean of calls will continue to flow and flow. And flow. The tide may ebb, but it never dissipates. For twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
I am profoundly humbled by my experience here, and I harbor a deep respect for everyone that works in this call center. They come from